VPR Cast#50: “Ryan’s Rage”

Welcome to our 50th mmo podcast at mmoSmacktalk.com! Ryan runs a one man show railing against the disrespectful slop of review put out at eurogamer.net. The other boys are out for varied reasons. If you’re in the mood to listen to a rant running 1 hour and 18 minutes, this cast was custom made for you.

Connor, Steven owns you :D. Digital Storm, where are you? See you post in forums… you afraid of Steve?

About this glorious mmo podcast:

Over 1 hour of mmo podcast pleasure

Ryan spends the entire cast picking apart the trash, which is supposed to constitute a review, at eurogamer.net. At the end Ryan gives a single tip on harvesting fishing nodes. So disregard what he says in the cast about fast forwarding to different topics if you’ve had enough of the eurogamer.net article… he lies. This mmo podcast is one long winded tirade intended to preach to the choir, or violently and vehemently educate newcomers.

Epoch… haahha. in regards to your comment “where is cast 50” in the comments section for cast 49…. here it is 😀 I forgot to take it off private view to make it public. Honestly, I am very sorry to have deprived you guys of Ryan’s angelic voice.

I don’t think that Tasos is being completely honest (as he has been dishonest in the past) and I think that the fanbase for DFO has shown how rabid they truly are, along with reinforcing everyone’s opinion on the DFO community as mildy psychotic with the amazingly disgusting insults toward anyone with anything negative to say about DFO.

I think that the interview by Ed Zitron was harsh and could of done without the cheeky nature/insults, but I agree and see how he could come to a 2/10 for DFO. Plain and simple the game is very amateurish and feels incomplete and lacks any depth. Darkfall Online is nothing but a FOTM skill set, like SWG was and Eve currently is.

For you to say that AoC is a 2/10 is absolutely ridiculous. AoC at launch was by far more superior to DFO as it is now. I don’t play AoC anymore, but if I had a choice for a game that I would “have” to play between the two, no contest AoC wins. The controls and combat are smooth and feels natural; as opposed to the herky jerky controls of DFO. Graphically AoC is superior to DFO, along with sound and overall art direction. I think that you are drinking the kool aid for DFO. Throughout the entire podcast, you have not said one detrimental thing about DFO. To me that speaks volumes, AoC has issues still to this day and DFO has some decent ideas about it, but quite simply you cannot see those things. So your comments don’t carry a lot of weight and is the complete opposite of Ed Zitron’s review, which all in all is the same thing, one being completely positive and the other completely negative.

I would give AoC a 7/10 and I would give DFO a 3.4/10.

My reason for giving DFO a 3.4/10 is based on the following criteria an MMO. I only will state the negative for now because I don’t want this comment to go on forever, but the positive was taken into account while giving the score.

1. Graphics——– The graphics for DFO compared to modern game is atrocious. I do not think that the game itself is visually pleasing in the least (except for distant horizons). Character models do not move naturally. The textures are very drab and lack very much variety. The character creation is terrible and lacks variey once again. I have tried different graphic settings and the game looks exactly the same. Score = (4)

2. Gameplay—– Wow, where to start. Clunky controls. Unresponsive skills. Horrendous lag spikes. Lack of a living world aside from what players you may run across (monsters are in spawn areas, not free roaming and no wildlife). Lack of quests and lore to the world (while I don’t care much for lore, they could of at least tried over the extended period that Adventurine had for development). The grindy nature of skilling up. The interface is minimal and awkward. Quest journal is amazingly slow and unresponsive. Score = (3)

4. Accessibility—– This is where the game gets its highest score, you don’t need a powerful machine to play, but with that being said; but trying to get the game is where it loses a really high score in this particular area. Score = (7)

5. Community—– Honestly, the community is a permanent Barrens Chat. Probably the worst community I have ever come across. Exploiters and Hackers abound. I have seen people with legitimate questions and complaints be told to “fuck off faggot” and “go back to WoW”. For an MMO this score is crucial and more so for DFO as almost everything is player driven. Score = (1)

So my score is tallied as 4+3+2+7+1=16/5= my final averaged score is 3.4 out of 10.

For Tasos to decline another review shows that he has little faith in the product itself. I think that politically getting out there in front of the Eurogamer review was smart on his part. To throw mud on the article and attack the site as a whole and not just Ed Zitron puts him in a unique position to make Eurogamer look bad no matter what. No matter what Eurogamer could do will make the DFO community (mainly Tasos) happy no matter what, whether they retract the review, re-review or just leave it alone. Many games have had terrible reviews, but the publishers have never retaliated in such a childish manner like Tasos. In the future he can claim this about any game journalist site. Which I think is a low blow for any game company.

While I may not enjoy the game, it doesn’t mean that some people will enjoy it as all MMO’s are subjective and what I don’t like, Ed Zitron doesn’t like or what Ryan or Tasos or anyone for that manner likes or dislikes doesn’t matter in the end, but to attack those that do not subscribe to your likes or dislikes doesn’t mean that their opinion or review is any less.

1.) Ed lied, or fabricated part of his story… I did nothing of the sort with my opinion and any facts reported. I’m fairly certain that everything I reported as fact is 100% true; however, I’m open to correction.
2.) Ed’s piss poor reportage can actually harm Aventurine’s income… so unless the game is actual trash, this is a very arrogant and disingenuous report. While I’m content with his right to say it, and would never strip that from him, my shock and such dishonesty compelled me to make this cast.
3.) I think I said in the cast that I was going to embellish some… which was really to embellish my fanboyness and zealotry. Admittedly though, I confess to being a fan of this game, but if I thought it was shit, I would NOT carry the water. Regardless, I dont think the comparison between Ed and myself can be made. For all intents and purposes I am here for entertainment/editorial/satirical commentary, whereas Ed is there for journalism (if you want to call it that). Honestly, what we do is worlds apart.
4.) Yes, there are some negative points, but compared to every mmo out there, they don’t stand out as anything special… and I think I said something to that affect. BTW, did you catch where I said that I can “understand” if somebody rates the game a 5/10?
5.) I don’t think I said flat out that AoC was a 2/10… If I did, I know there was some context surrounding it, and that if you really paid attention (or I’m delusional… oh, and not saying you didnt pay attention… just deal with my loose typing 😀 ) you would have heard me say something to the affect that I think DFO is far better than AoC; if anything, AoC was a 2/10. HOWEVER, the sheer work that went into creating bothof these games from art to programming and functionality would not warrant a 2/10 score for either game.

Graphics: you might be right… but I’m willing to play with a 4 in the graphics department. I just want a good ffa pvp with full loot game that offers solid fluidity… which in my experience DFO has. (yes, i have had lag, but Ironforge in WoW would get some disgusting lag at times… the point being that that is neither here nor there since it is not a very prevalent or standout part of the game). I will add that on my main game machine, the graphics are actually pretty good, except the terrain (mother agon), a trade that I will gladly make for fluid fps pvp.

Gameplay: honestly tell me about your computer… I just dont have these problems (in general) and from what I can tell, neither do the guys that I play with. As I stated in my cast, the controls are not clunky to me whatsoever… I have no idea why we differ on that. Maybe I was interested in learning a new system an have simply contented myself with it. About the minimal interface comment… there are TWO states to toggle between … offering a LOT of interface. Perhaps you are discontent with the action state interface… well, I am just fine with this, and I’m not settling. REally I think that some of our disagreement here is just based on personal perspective. Overall, I prefer minimal. RE: the quest journal…. it is the best idea that I’ve seen to date for a quest journal, but the implementation blows hardcore (laggy).

Soundtrack: what soundtrack? haha! Not sure that I’ve heard any music… if so, I would have turned it off for pvp purposes. Best soundtrack ever IMO goes to Vanguard… L2 was good too.

Accessibility: I think the sum of my cast and comments suffices here.

Community: Worse than what you said. Sucks that Aventurine has to be saddled with so many punks. BTW, I regret my “fag” comment in the cast… I don’t like resorting to name calling unless it is a “bastard” or “mother fucker”… possibly cause I will lovingly say those to people that I like. “Fag” is to overplayed by the adolescent community.

RE: what you said about Tasos and childishness… I completely disagree. It’s not that I think you perspective here is completely not understandable, but the way I see it is that some punk through a bunch of guys and their livelyhood under the local transit just because he was having a bad hair day. When it is so evident that the author, Ed, LIED and FABRICATED his story (and I show where in the cast), and the editor would not retract the article (even just pending investigation)… this shows a lack of integrity and sincerity on eurogamer’s part.

So the bottom line, is that I enjoy playing DFO very much… many different opportunities to play a single game, with single character in many different ways. I don’t suffer from lag any worse than any other mmo that I’ve played; however, I do realize experiences will vary. In short, my outrage can be summed up by the blatant lies and disrespect put forth by Ed Zitron, and the apparent lack of concern for such repercussions by the editor at eurogamer.net. I can’t stand dishonest people, and I cannot tolerate an article that is tantamount to theft.

Graphics for an mmo: 5.5/10 (btw, I would play an mmo that was as compelling as dfo with a graphics rating of 2.5.. maybe even 0… enter ZORK)

Playability: 8/10 (apparently people are having quite diverse experiences… bet the euros are loving the low ping.)

Captivating: 10/10 (not sure when it will wear off, but I’m NEVER at a loss for something to do, whether it be exploration, or increase skill, crafting, harvesting, etc… admittedly, this is a rating that slides over time… most games diminish in this department… but after 3-4 weeks… I give it a 10/10)

Overall, IMO the game is ground breaking… it is rich with tactics and a new style of gameplay (for mmos) that I think will greatly impact the future of mmos (crouch walk for silent movement, awesome use of terrain… the list goes on). And I think this is the biggest reason for my being a fan… that is observing first hand the evolution of gaming and a long awaited separation from the EQ clone apparatchik.

AoC: 0/10 (sometimes it felt like -4/10… i had to force myself to play at some point. I ONLY had fun in groups, and not because of pvp. This is the fun factor… not how I’d rate it if I was trying to be objective and fair. from the first mouse click of playing I started out at a 4… and within a short time I hit 0/10 with this game).

For my system, as you requested I have an E7400 OC’d from 2.5 to 3.5, 4Gig DDR2 800Mhz and 8800GT running on 64bit Vista.

I agree with the fact that reviews can hurt a game’s monetary income, but I think not as much as word of mouth. I think that players hurt the game more than a reviewer ever could.

Case in point, if a friend of mine tells me that game A is great, but Gamesite X says game A sucks, I will most likely believe my friend above that of a gamersite and vice versa. I prefer to listen to what the playerbase is saying about a game, not a journalism site. I believe that most gamers are that way as well.

I will read a review, but ultimately make my mind up from personal experience. Hell I think that the review itself will churn up more interest than you give it credit for (the whole, who can’t look at a car wreck when you drive past syndrome).

As for your remarks on Soundtrack, it implies more than just music and sorry I wasn’t clearer with that. I also take in account NPC voices, combat noises and ambient sounds as well.

As for Community, Adventurine helped foster those types of rabid personalities. They loved to hear their fans “shit-talk” other games on the market and didn’t censor any of the personal attacks to other posters on their own forums. I am not saying that AoC (I site this, because it was a big time war between these two titles) didn’t come in and talk trash, but it was no where near the magnitude of DF forums. I had friends that were looking forward to DFO, but the community alone turned them off to the game. They actually loved the way the game handled, but in the end the community was the deal breaker. A quote from one of those friends was something like this:

“I can’t take the community, too many elitist jerks that think that they are gods gift to gaming, that care nothing for teamwork or common decency. In a game where it is player driven, it is the biggest detriment and I don’t care to deal with it.”

As for graphics, I agree with you. Graphics are not that important to me. I prefer gameplay above all else. If SOE would bring a Pre-CU SWG server back, I would be there and drop anything I was playing at the moment.

I appreciate your calm response to my comment, as I was half expecting a rabid fanboi attack lol.

I would like to hear more about why you scored AoC so low and give WAR a higher rating. I would give WAR a 5.5/10. To me WAR’s combat is way too long and horrible for those that play MDPS. Its a Tank and Healer game. Balance is terrible.

I had a blast in WAR until I hit career rank 40 and started grinding Renown. Plus I friggin hate DoK’s.

Your system reads better than mine, so I’m curious why you get the performance you do… you try turning off shadows? Those are the bane to just about every mmo that I’ve played. Nice on the eyes… but rough on smooth gameplay.

As for the rest of what you said in your second post… I agree with the exception of the dev team and forum censorship. While I do agree that many of the young penile implants on the dfo forums are responsible for more hurt feelings than members of the zerg called Ebonlore (:D), I’m glad that censorship has been kept to a minimum. They do nail you when you get crude and excessively crass over there. Altogether I think it’s a good thing to let the community run with itself… but the near lack of any decency within the forums at large is astounding. haha.

I’ll get back to you on the AoC/WAR thing. We’ve covered it in other casts, so if you’re new to listening to us feel free to check out our archives. Most of them have been tagged appropriately. With that being said, I’m definitely not putting this off. I’m thinking that revisiting this subject might make for a nice 20 min interlude from dfo. But in short, I just didn’t feel the game was compelling (AoC)… and it was monotonous as hell… same button mashing over and over. Directional swinging was a joke. And check this out… I was looking forward to it too. Listen to the casts… haha. you will hear me yelling with excitement! But once we got in the mix, the game’s appeal quickly sent my exuberance plummeting straight to h-e-double toothpicks.

Dude burnt your not supposed to play this game with the music playing douche…. How the fuck are you going to hear people fighting in the distance and sneaking up on you if you have music playing?

ALSO the game is not about looks its about epic battles and size dumb ass.

How do you give Accessibility a 7? you can go any where… what do you want to be able to go under the map also?

Your score for Community is based off the forums only… you can ask anything and get help right away from the players in game dumb fuck… and then you get people like me that fucking hate people like you that don’t even play the game OBVIOUSLY and try to rate it based on what they have heard and seen in vids…

I HAVE ALSO only seen 1 hacker in the game in the 1 month i have seen. Alot less then other games.

Well Epoch. I think that you opening your mouth is the reason that I gave the community a 1/10, so thanks for proving my point in that area.

I am not talking about having Europe’s – The Final Countdown playing in the background. I am talking about ambient noises, combat noises and character noises along with whatever music that Adventurine put in to add to the world.

As far as accessibility, I don’t mean where you can go in the “game”. I mean how does it perform on multiple systems. WoW gets a high score in this area because you don’t need a super computer to play it, where as AoC would get something akin to a 5. The reason DFO didn’t get higher is because it is hard for someone to get a hold of a copy. I checked everyday and didn’t get mine until Mid April.

There are still people exploiting and cheating. I don’t know what game you have been playing.

I would suggest you reread my posts, because it just seems like you grazed over and jumped out a rabid fanboy with nothing to say other than, “OMFG ShItCOCK! Bastard fuck! Douche @#$#%#@!!!!!!!!”

Just wanna say what’s up MMOSMACKTALK, I gotta admit I’ve heard a lot of bad reviews about Darkfall and it doesn’t seem like the game for me (Currently super-hyped about Mortal Online, yeah I’m a fanboy Ha!), but the review Eurogamer gave Darkfall was Brutally Ignorant. Darkfall JUST CAME OUT so it’s understandable to have some bugs, and I’m quite sure that eventually it’ll be a gem. Anyways peace out.

2020: DFO suffers from the same sort of things that every mmo usually releases with. Maybe it’s my fan love, 6 year anticipation, love of the sandbox system, and complete joy over the return of a skill based system; add on to that the fps element and life is great. So with that, I can learn to love MO too… I am by no means in a monogamous relationship with DFO. Reading over MO, there is a lot of sweet sex on the horizon to be had with that tramp, BUT there are a few things that concern me personally. I’ll tell you all about those when we do the MO cast. I’m thinking that cast 52 will probably be largely dedicated to Mortal Online, unless something super happens in DFO from now til then.

Back cast? Wtf is that bro? Like when you break your back? O.o nah I ain’t handicapped. Dude, I’ll admit some great games were on nintendo but I got a sega when i was like 4 years old and I fell in love with Sonic, Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe and… well wait those were the only good games for Sega… :'(

Been hearing podcasts since about 35… first comment lol
First of all I was like omg Ryan only you by yourself?
But you actually pulled it off very nicely done ^^
Here is something someone on the forums posted by someone named rosenrot

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Review
From the grubby textures and grammatically incorrect quest text to the anarchic control system, any attempt to glean joy from this torrid husk of an entertainment product is met with disdain.
What is he talking about? The interface is not difficult to use at all after you spend about a day in game. The quests are not the focus of the game at all, that’s in the fine print. Graphics are not important to a good game.

Quote:
Worse still, the entire economy is player-driven – meaning that anybody wanting to get involved in crafting has literally hours of harvesting wood, or rock, or any of the other generic resources.
As opposed to hours of leveling in more traditional MMOs? He’s seeing a dichotomy where none exists.

Quote:
twitch-based combat
First hint this guy isn’t a PvPer. There are no easy buttons to prevent your opponent from being able to move so I could see how the new or unskilled player could find this “twitch-based”.

Quote:
The lack of hit detection saps the combat of any weight or skill, and makes it incredibly frustrating to fight enemies during PVE or PVP combat.
It is a shame headshots don’t do more damage, but that hardly robs the combat of “all skill”. I wonder what this guy would be saying had he played long enough to face someone wielding weapon mastery.

Quote:
Judging the distance that one needs to be at to fight a foe is largely guesswork, and, worse still, your combat skills affect how often you actually connect. It isn’t even an issue of timing your clicks based on the connection with your sword – it’s nigh-on random.
I don’t know what he’s talking about here, and I suspect at this point he doesn’t either. He was probably de-sync’ed.

Quote:
Using spells or arrows is somewhat less exhausting, but usually ends messily when an enemy decides to run at you, leaving you with the choice of changing weapon (a ten-second operation – five if you’re particularly nimble) or running backwards in the vain hope of not dying.
More evidence this guy lacks basic hand-eye coordination and reflex.

Quote:
You see, everything in Darkfall is based on attrition. You slowly but surely gain stats in everything as you do it, ranging from running to wood-chopping to sword-fighting to spell-casting. This sounds as if it would make for an incredibly individual and adaptable experience, but the lacklustre presentation of the game melds with the tortoise-slow skill-up speed to make the experience quintessentially painful.
I’ll agree the game is too grindy, but again, I wonder why he’s acting like WoW or Warhammer isn’t a grind too. Reading this you’d think this is 1999 or something.

Quote:
Not even old-school EverQuest – which was actually graphically superior- felt quite as stiflingly slow and ponderous in its levelling curve.
And again with the graphics comments! Wow, this guy isn’t even a gamer.

Quote:
You see, anyone can kill anyone. For the most part, your first ten or so hours in Darkfall are spent dying, repeatedly, at the hands of either the AI or a cyber-bully in a wolf-suit. In fact, past that mark, it feels impossible to avoid the clammy hands and bloodied sword of somebody who has specially allocated part of their day to griefing.
That was advertised for a long time, and in fact is one of the more popular features of the game. Does he actually read, or does he just blow hot air all the time?

Quote:
Even when you become semi-capable of operation without constant death, there’s little to enjoy. The quests are repetitive kill-X-of-Y monstrosities written with a six-year-old’s understanding of English. There are none of the intricacies of World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online, and there’s none of the charm of old-world EverQuest.
Why is he still focusing on the quests?

What intricacies in WoW/WAR? CC? Auto-attack? Loss-less death? Yeah, it’s hard to sit there and watch your character attack someone that can’t fight back because they’re mezzed.

Quote:
he world is bland in the extreme, with no definition in areas except those where you spawn as a newbie – and even they echo with a distinct lack of life. It doesn’t even have the basic features that make up even the most lackluster and dull cookie-cutter MMOs, such as a simple experience system, or some form of tutorial.
Once again, he misses the point. This was by design. Originally, there weren’t even supposed to BE safe newbie zones. Can you imagine how this review would read had that come to pass?

Quote:
Many avid fanboys defend Darkfall by saying that it’s ‘just not made for the average or casual player’.
That’s because it’s true, and this sad review is proving that very admirably.

Quote:
In reality, this is just an excuse for Aventurine’s inability to create a balanced, playable game. When I swing a sword, I want to be able to hit something,
Then learn to aim properly? He must expect the mob to grab its ankles for him? Maybe that’s what he meant when he referred to the “intricacies” of WoW and WAR?

Ed is clearly no way a real gamer, of course people have to be honest and I do understand if the game does receive a low score as you said “a 5/10”
this game deserves a fair review… this man is comparing it to WoW and War and of course aimed at a different hardcore audience than a casual gamer